Base Camp
Boogie Boarding @ La Jolla
Tide Pooling @ Bird Rock (fog coming in)
Greetings from Sunny San Diego!
We all arrived at DIA around 7 am, although some were
delayed a bit by the amount of traffic – Monday morning seemed to have many business
travelers. We got checked in at the
Southwest check in, then lined up and headed for the security. Mr. Framke led the way, with 49 students
behind, Mrs. Du Houx bringing up the rear.
We got to security – along with many other people, so we went back and
forth in the zigzag cue, until we finally reached the point where we took off
our shoes and put our stuff in bins – about 45 minutes later.
Instead of walking
through a metal detector, you now go into this glass box, raise your arms above
your head and the box examines you – I am assuming this is the X-ray security
they were talking about last year.
Several students had to go back through this scanning two, three, or
four times, but eventually we all got through.
One student had metal decorations on her skirt and had to wait for Mrs.
Du Houx to come and be her guardian before the female security guard patted her
down. Two other female students had to
wait for Mr. Framke to come and allow the security to go through their back
packs and remove the hair gel they had put in the carrier-on-bag just before
they left – needless to say the gel was confiscated.
Once through security, we lined up again for counting,
and took the train to concourse C.
Luckily our gate was close to the train entrance, because the plane was
about to board. Students had five minutes
to use the restroom and fill their water bottles with Denver water before we
started to board. One student had lost
his boarding pass, but he still had his luggage claim tags, so the lady at the
check-in was very nice and reissued his boarding pass.
We were able to occupy the back of the plain and students
were kept busy working on the algebra sheet Mr. Framke had passed out as we
boarded. The flight was smooth – the
views spectacular – and the students were well behaved. All seats were filled, and several passengers
were decked out in their Bronco attire, I assume they were going to tonight’s
game of Broncos vs. San Diego. The captain wished Denver well – I guess he is a
Bronco fan too.
Once we landed, and started leaving the plane, Ashby
noticed that some students had left their pencil bags and a hoodie, which she
collected – thanks Ashby for watching out for your fellow students. We went to the luggage carousels, all bags
made it on time. Stephanie from Sea Camp
met us in baggage, and led us outside where we made a large mound of our bags
and waited for the Sea Camp vans and trailer to arrive, which they did a few
minutes later. Students were loaded into
the 14 passenger vans while Sea Camp staff loaded up the luggage in the trailer
and the equipment van. It took a while
for us to make it to Fiesta Island, due to heavy traffic, but we finally
made. It was a sunny warm day – the
weather report says that we should have warm clear weather all week.
Once at Sea Camp base camp at Fiesta Island, students
were given an orientation about Sea Camp, and were then permitted to move into
their dorm rooms. The rooms were
switched from what we have used the last several years, the girls are in the
one large room dorm; the boys are in the two room dorm. After getting situated and putting their
bathing suits on under dry clothes, and getting sized for a wet suite, we had
lunch. Sea Camp has changed their
catering company so instead of the subway style bread for lunch time
sandwiches, students had the choice of different breads with each type of
sandwich – chicken salad, ham, turkey, peanut butter and jelly and many more
plus Fritos, a cookie and either an apple or orange.
After lunch we loaded up in the vans and headed to La
Jolla shores. The coastal fog was
rolling into Fiesta Island as we were leaving, but it was not present as we
drove north. Group B got to boogie board
first, while group A did a beach walk, then the groups switched. After bookie boarding, students were to
change out of their wet bathing suits into dry clothes and put on their close
toed shoes.
We headed off to the tide pools at around 3, since today
was a New Moon, the tidal range is large, with the low (spring) tide at about 3
pm. Students were put into group of four
or five students each with a bucket. We
headed down a large cement staircase to the tide pools, and the fun began. Hermit crabs and fiddler crabs were all over
the place, as were sea anemone, and algae.
Groups started screaming in excitement as they found baby fish (including
a baby Garibaldi), small octopi, chitons, sea stars, brittle stars, sea hares,
and much more. We had a few casualties;
Brandon and Collin were lifting up a rock, but somehow managed to cut both of
their hands on it. A Sea Camp staff person
was right there to help clean up the hands and bandage them after disinfecting
them. There was a rumor started that
Brandon had cut his palm because he was trying to catch a baby shark (about
three feet long – sometimes longer depending on who was telling the tale) but the
shark had slipped through his hand and sliced it open. It was amazing how many students believed
this whopper – at first – even though none of the pools were big enough to
house a three foot long animal.
After collecting for some time, the group sat down and
discussed the types of stresses that affect animals in tidal pools and looked
at the cool animals we had found. The
animals were released before we returned to the vans. As we sat and looked at things, the coastal
fog moved in to the point that we could no longer see the water, the waves and
the people paddle boarding off the shore from the tidal pools.
We returned to the vans, and drove through more traffic
to return to Sea Camp base on Fiesta Island.
There was no fog south of the tidal pools so we had a clear view of Sea
World and the area surrounding Sea Camp.
Back at camp, students helped with the wet-suit washing, then had free
time to take showers, call home and work on their Sea Camp Journals. Mr. Framke, Nolan and Peter went for a cross
country workout/run in preparation for the state meet.
Dinner consisted of a tossed salad with dressing,
lasagna, garlic bread, green beans and jelly for dessert. As students finished eating; students had a
little bit of down time before tonight’s labs. Tonight, one group is scheduled
to do the fish lab, the other the invertebrate lab. The air was chilly, so students were
encouraged to put on their hoodies and long pants.
Note: This report will be put on Mrs. Du Houx’s Science
Blog for today’s 8th grade entry.
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